One Dance with a Duke (41 page)

“If you knew me at all,” she said in a shaky voice, “you would understand how dearly I love my family. And if you ask me to deny them … you’ve made the choice yourself.” She grabbed the sheaf of legal papers from the table and clutched them to her chest. “These aren’t signed yet. So long as this house belongs to the d’Orsays, my brother is welcome in it. Jack stays.”

“Nothing good will come of it,” he warned. “He’ll only hurt you again.”

“Not half as much as you’re hurting me now.”

“Amelia …” He slowly stretched a hand toward her, but she flinched away before he’d halved the gap.

“Go,” she said, jerking her chin toward the library. “Go win your damn horse. We both know where your loyalties are.”

She was so prickly and emotional and filled with
wrongheaded notions … he couldn’t even conceive of how to argue with her.

So he did what she’d asked. He went.

The library was small, and they huddled around the desk to play. Their game was brag. Piquet was Spencer’s forte, but it was only a two-player game.

It took time to lay a trap, and no small amount of patience. The first and most difficult task was to create the illusion that chance had a seat at the table. For the first hour or so of play, Spencer won a few hands and purposely lost several others. On a few occasions, his opponents’ superior play truly caught him off guard. He knew he ought to be using this time to observe Bellamy carefully. Every man, even the best of players, gave unconscious physical clues to what sort of cards he held. But Spencer just couldn’t focus on the arch of Bellamy’s eyebrow or the tapping of his finger. Memories of Amelia kept distracting him. He kept seeing her lovely blue eyes marred by redness. He heard her bitter words rattling in his ears. And other parts of him recalled the way she’d lavished her passion on him earlier that day, as he’d sat in this very chair. She had him more than distracted. He was damned confused.

She was right, to some extent. He
had
manipulated her with this holiday, along with everyone else. Purchasing the cottage in secret, conspiring with Rhys to get Bellamy to the card table. But did Amelia truly think her own imagining of this house party would have culminated in success? In her fantasy, she would open her house, her arms, and her heart to everyone, and Spencer would reveal a few long-held, mildly embarrassing secrets. Add in a week of angling and parlor games … conflict resolved. The three men would emerge as friends.

A naïve, impossible notion. Wasn’t it?

As Bellamy shuffled the cards and prepared to deal,
Spencer cleared his throat and looked to Rhys. “Say, Ashworth … we’re not friends, are we?”

A healed gash scored the soldier’s face, and his eyebrow split as he looked up in surprise. “I don’t know. We’re not enemies.”

“Any further traumatic childhood incidents you feel moved to discuss?”

“Not particularly. You?”

Spencer shook his head. “None.”

Bellamy rapped the deck to square it, then began to deal. “While we’re having this little chat, I’ll take the opportunity to say I despise you both. And as far as you two are concerned, I was born to nomadic goatherds in Albania.”

That settled it. So much for friendship. Spencer gathered his cards. No pair, few prospects. Time to make good on his deal with Rhys. “Let’s stop mincing around, then. Ten thousand.” He scratched the sum on a piece of paper and shoved it to the center of the table.

Play turned to Rhys. “I don’t have ten thousand.”

“I’ll accept your token as an even wager against mine.”

“Ten?” His eyes said,
I thought we agreed on fifteen
. “Twenty, and we’ll call it an even exchange.”

Sly bastard
. Spencer didn’t even feel like arguing. He just wanted this over. With a stub of charcoal, he altered the notation on the paper. “Done.”

Ashworth shook the brass token loose from his purse and laid it on the table before him, giving Spencer an enigmatic look. “It’s up to fate now.”

“I make my own fate, thank you.” Bellamy lifted the corner of his cards where they lay on the table. His face remained impassive. Spencer expected the man to get out of the way, wait to see how things shook out between him and Ashworth before risking anything of his own.

But Bellamy wasn’t that clever. He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a brass coin. “Let’s do this. I’m tired of pushing pennies back and forth. I need to talk to that whore before her memories fade any further and find out who was with Leo that night. Perhaps his companion could lead me to the killers.”

“Perhaps his companion died too,” Ashworth said.

“We would have known by now, if another gentleman of the
ton
went missing or turned up dead the same night. That wouldn’t make sense.” After a pause, Bellamy added thoughtfully, “Unless he had something to do with the attack …”

Spencer groaned. “For God’s sake, stop looking for vast conspiracies in a random crime. No, it doesn’t make sense. By definition, a senseless tragedy never will. Maybe the prostitute was lying, or simply confused.”

“Maybe.” Bellamy tapped his coin on the table testily. “But the sooner I talk to her, the sooner I’ll know, won’t I?” He flung the token to the center of the table. “One hand. All ten tokens. Winner takes all.”

“I’ve already put in twenty thousand,” Spencer protested. “You expect me to put in all my tokens, too?”

“Do you want the horse, or don’t you?” Bellamy’s eyes were hard. “This is your only chance. Win or lose—after this hand, I get up from the table and walk away.”

Spencer stared hard at the man’s expression, scanning in vain for some tic in his jaw or telltale dilation of his pupils. Damn it, he ought to have forced himself to concentrate earlier. If he had, he might have known whether Bellamy truly had the cards to back up his bet, or just wanted to scare Spencer off, so he could leave the table with his token and dignity.

Regardless of what cards Bellamy held, Spencer knew his own were worthless. True, there were more cards to be dealt and he might catch a stroke of luck, but if
Spencer called this bet, the odds were he would lose everything.

Well, not
everything
. The excessive drama of the thought struck even him as overwrought. What was truly at stake here? A few lumps of brass and an aging stallion? Suddenly, none of it seemed worth a damn. His wife, on the other hand—now, Amelia was irreplaceable.

He’d been pursuing this goal with such focus, for so long … giving it up simply hadn’t been an option. After all this time, he’d practically lost sight of why he wanted the stallion in the first place. If he gave up on Osiris, he’d reasoned at the outset, he would be giving up on Juno. And to give up on Juno would have felt uncomfortably close to giving up on himself.
Would have
, in the past. But this was the present. More to the point, this was the beginning of his future. The only reason they were gathered was because Leo Chatwick, his peer and contemporary, had died far too young. Was this truly what Spencer wanted inscribed on his own grave marker? “Brilliant cardsharp, good with horses?”

For a moment, he imagined what would happen if he lost. He would leave all ten tokens and any stake in Osiris on this table, and then go upstairs to make amends to his wife. Pledge to make her his priority, and hope and pray that she could one day find it in her heart to return the sentiment. Cover her body with kisses; whisper words of love against her skin. Make love to her until neither of them had the strength to stand.

How would losing feel? It would feel damn good. It would feel remarkably like a victory.

This was the moment to walk away.

Apparently, Bellamy had decided the same. He picked up the token and replaced it in his pocket as he rose. “Well, then. If you haven’t the stones—”

“Sit down,” Spencer told him, flipping Leo’s token
into the center of the desk. “We’re going to finish this tonight. The other tokens are upstairs. Let me send a servant for the lockbox.”

He rose from his chair, but before he could even reach the door, Amelia burst through it. Behind her came Lily, dressed in nightclothes and wrapper, her unbound hair hanging to her waist. Both women wore expressions of fear.

“Good God, what is it?” Spencer moved to take Amelia in his arms. To the devil with horses and cards … At that moment, embracing her was the only thing in the world he wanted to do. It seemed the thing he’d been made to do. She needed him, and she’d come to him. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her now.

But as he reached for her, her arms stiffened. She held him off.

“We’ve no time,” she said, swallowing hard. “Claudia is missing.”

“Missing?” Spencer’s face turned the color of ash. He gripped her elbow. “Are you certain? Perhaps she’s only—”

“No. She’s gone, and she’s not alone.” Amelia swallowed hard, wondering how she could possibly tell him this next. But she had to do it. If there was any hope, it depended on swift action. “She’s gone with Jack. They left a note.”

Raising her fist in the gap between them, she bade her fingers to relax. In her palm lay the crumpled scrap of paper she’d found tacked to the kitchen doorjamb, in that pockmarked patch just below the lintel where countless coats of enamel had worn through to the grain. Her brothers had always left their messages there. The d’Orsay Post, they called it. And true to form, Jack’s message was succinct:

We’re for Gretna
.

The paper was signed by them both.

Spencer stared at the words so fiercely, Amelia would not have been surprised to see the scrawled letters roust themselves from the paper and rearrange to spell different words, just to escape his displeasure. She too wished there were some way she could alter the facts.

“How long?” he asked brusquely.

“We … we don’t know. Obviously sometime since dinner, so a few hours at most. The horses are all still here, so they must be on foot.” Surrendering the note, she knitted her fingers in a tight clasp. “I can only imagine he’s after her dowry.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lily said from behind her. “I retired early, and of course I didn’t hear her go out.”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer said. “My ward isn’t your responsibility.”

He gave Amelia a sharp look, stabbing at her conscience. Of course, Claudia was partly her responsibility. And Jack … Jack wouldn’t even have been here, if she hadn’t insisted he stay. “I’m so sorry,” she said feebly. “That he would run off with her like this, in the middle of the night … I simply can’t believe it of him.”

“Of course you can’t. You haven’t believed anything I’ve told you of him. No matter what he does, you defend the rogue. Why should you stop now?”

“Perhaps there’s some misunderstanding, some other explanation,” she said feebly. Feebly, because even she knew the words were foolishness.

Steeling his jaw, he headed for the desk. “I told you nothing good would come of letting him stay.”

“Yes, you did.” But she’d been willing to take that risk, assuming stupidly that hers were the only feelings at stake. That if Jack wrought more mischief, he would be hurting only
her
. She’d never dreamed his actions could affect Spencer and Claudia, too. Oh, Lord.

By this time, Bellamy and Ashworth were on their feet.

“What’s going on?” Bellamy asked.

“My brother has eloped with Claudia,” Amelia told him. When Spencer shot her a look, she added, “It’s not as though we can hide it from them. For God’s sake, let them help.”

“Which way would they have gone, Morland?” Ashworth asked.

“Well?” Spencer looked to Amelia. “You know the area best.”

She shrugged helplessly, catching one fingertip between her opposite thumb and forefinger and pinching it hard. “Any number of ways. Most likely toward Gloucester, to catch a mail coach headed north. But to get there they might have gone north through Colford, or east, toward Lydney. Then there’s the river. They might have headed south toward the Severn, intending to ferry over to Aust and continue to London. The fastest coaches to Scotland leave from there. Or they could have hoped to board a ship …” Her voice dwindled, along with her hopes. The possibilities seemed endless; the likelihood of catching them, slim. “In any direction, they’re not much more than a half-dozen miles from transport.”

“Well,” Ashworth said, “there are three of us.”

“I’ll order my fastest horses saddled,” Spencer said, pulling open a low drawer of the desk. “We’ll each take a different route.”

“Precisely when did I offer my assistance?” Bellamy asked.

“Just now.” Spencer withdrew a pistol from the desk drawer. With a bit of show, presumably for Bellamy’s benefit, he jammed the gun into the waistband of his trousers.

At the sight of the weapon, Amelia’s joints went weak.

“All right, all right.” Bellamy acquiesced with an impatient tug at his hair. “I’ll go south, toward the Severn and Town. If I find them, you’ll hear of it. But I’ll continue on to London if I don’t.”

“Fair enough. You’ll find her at the Blue Turtle, in Hounslow. You’ll probably need to pay her account.”

Amelia had no idea what that last bit meant, but Bellamy seemed to understand.